I took delivery of a 2022 992 GT3 Touring in November 2025. By "took delivery" I mean my dealer called me at 3:14 on a Tuesday afternoon and said the car was on the truck, and I drove an hour and forty minutes to a body shop in San Jose because I did not want it to spend the night on a flatbed. The PPI was a flashlight check in the body shop's parking lot. I drove it home that evening with 41 miles on the odometer.

I am writing this on May 12, 2026, with 4,217 miles on the car. I have driven it to two track days at Thunderhill (one full day each, Lena as my instructor for both). I have used it to commute roughly twice a week. I have taken it on one road trip — Santa Cruz to Bend, Oregon and back, two days each way, my wife was patient. The rest is grocery store, school pickup, coffee runs, and the occasional drive up Highway 1 because Highway 1 still works for that.

I want to talk about what living with this car has been like, because the GT3 Touring discourse online is almost entirely about either the engine note (warranted) or the resale market (boring), and almost nothing about what it is to put 4,000 miles on one in your actual life. That's what I have, so that's what I'll write about.

The car

For specifications: 2022 992.1 GT3 Touring, six-speed manual, GT Silver Metallic over Black, Front Axle Lift, Light Design package, no PCCB (ceramic brakes — I declined; track-day brake feel is better on the iron rotors and I knew I'd drink the kool-aid on track use). The seats are the standard 18-way Sports Seats Plus rather than the carbon buckets; my back will not survive the carbon buckets and I want to get out of the car at fifty without complaining. MSRP plus options came to $182,440. Dealer markup at order was $20,000, which I refused. The dealer sat on the allocation for fourteen months and called me back. I paid sticker. This is worth mentioning because I know I'm the exception.

What it's like to commute in

The 992 chassis is significantly more daily-livable than the 991.2 GT3 was. I have not driven a 991.2 GT3 in three years, but I drove one for a long-term loaner in 2021 and remember it being something I would not want to do school pickup in. The 992 has better ride compliance in PASM normal, less road noise at highway speeds, and crucially a clutch that does not require a deliberate transfer of body weight to engage smoothly. My wife described the 991.2 as "driving a barbell." She has driven the 992 to the farmers market twice without complaint.

The seats matter. I get out of the 992 after a two-hour drive feeling fine. I would not be able to write that sentence about the carbon buckets. The trade-off is they're a touch less bolstered on track. Lena's exact words to me at Thunderhill: "you're sliding two inches in turn five, get the buckets." I am still not getting the buckets.

The 4.0L flat-six is the headline and deserves to be. It is also, around town, perfectly happy below 4,000 rpm. You can drive this car for a week without ever taking it past 5,000 rpm and it does not feel sulky. That was the surprise. Cars in this class often feel like they're punishing you for not using them. The GT3 Touring is patient.

The fuel economy is fine

I am averaging 19.7 mpg over the 4,200 miles. That is mixed driving, with two track days and the Bend trip both pulling the average down. On the highway at 75 mph I see 23 to 24 mpg consistently. That is better than my old 2018 4Runner. It is roughly equivalent to a normal modern V6 sedan. The car will run 91 octane without complaint, though I run 93 when I can find it (rarely on the West Coast).

What's broken or worn so far

  • Front lip. Rock chip from approximately mile 800. The car attracts rocks. Paint protection film on the front clip would have prevented this. I'm getting it wrapped this summer.
  • Driver's seat bolster scuffing. Already visible. I'm sliding across that bolster every time I get in. This is not a GT3-specific complaint — every 911 does this — but worth flagging that the Sports Seats Plus leather is not bulletproof.
  • The brake pads went from new to track-day-warranted at about 1,400 miles. Not because of the track day; just because the OE pads come on hot. They squeal when cold. I swapped to PFC 08 pads for track use and run street pads for daily. This is a $1,400-a-set decision I had not budgeted for at order.
  • Nothing else. No squeaks. No rattles. No electronics issues. Everything works.

What I'd buy differently

I would have ordered the PCCB despite what I said earlier. The iron rotors are fine on track, but the heat soak after a hard session means I am crawling out of pit lane for two cool-down laps. PCCB handles the heat better. The cost delta at order was $9,210. I refused it because of the track-day-brake-feel argument. With six months and two track days of evidence, I think I was wrong. Brake feel is fine on the iron rotors; pad cost is the issue, and PCCB pads last roughly twice as long.

I would not change the manual transmission decision. The PDK is reportedly better at the track. The manual is better at the rest of the time. I commute in this car. The manual stays.

The thing nobody warns you about

The car is conspicuous. Light blue and a 1989 Yellowbird tribute, my other two cars — neither attracts attention in the parking lot of a Trader Joe's the way the GT3 Touring does in GT Silver. I have had three separate conversations with people in the past month who walked up while I was loading groceries. One was a fellow PCA member; that was nice. Two were strangers who wanted to know what it cost. That is not a complaint, just a thing to know. The Touring is a more discreet GT3 than the wing car, but it is still a GT3.

Six-month verdict

I bought this car to track. I have tracked it twice and intend to track it more. But the surprise — the worth-writing-about surprise — is that it is the daily I did not know I wanted. It commutes better than my old Defender, with which it shares no other attribute. It has weight in your life that I think is rare in modern cars at any price.

I'll write the track-day specific notes in a separate piece in the fall, after Thunderhill summer. The short version is that as a daily, this car is fundamentally easier to live with than any of the three press cars I drove in 2024 priced at half what it cost. That is the surprise. And it is, I think, the argument for the car if you can find an allocation.